Apr 12 1966
From The Space Library
Cosmonautics Day in U.S.S.R., celebrating fifth anniversary of first manned space fight by Yuri A. Gagarin, was marked by condemnations of military orientation of US. space efforts and predictions of Soviet space successes. Cosmonaut Gagarin, speaking in the Kremlin, said: "American scientists and cosmonauts have carried out a number of interesting experiments. This is to their credit. It is to be deeply regretted, however, that American cosmonautics is increasingly falling under the influence of the Pentagon, which regards outer space as the theater of future military operations." Gagarin pledged "all his energies and knowledge" to help in the lunar mission and said man must make himself at home on the moon "to establish stations which will serve as points of departure for longer space voyages and also as astronomical observatories and scientific laboratories." Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, speaking in a taped interview on Moscow television, predicted that "builders and assemblers will one day exit into space and put together various parts of space stations, assemble spaceships and stations on the moon, and build various structures." In a Pravda article Marshal Konstantin Vershinin, head of Soviet Air Force, predicted a new manned space mission that could take several cosmonauts through the Van Allen radiation belts. He noted. that biomedical data from the COSMOS CX flight would "doubtlessly . . . be used in preparing new manned space flights." In an interview published in Prague, Cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov predicted that man would land on Mars and Venus between 1970 and 1980. (Pravda, 4/12/66, 2; Wash. Post, 4/11/66, A8; AP, NYT, 4/11/66,37; AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 4/11/66, A8; UPI, NYT, 4/14/66,7; Wash. Post, 4/13/66, A14; Loory, N.Y. Her. Trib., 4/13/66)
USAF XB-70 No. 2 flew 20 min. at mach 3-longest to date-and reached 70,000-ft. maximum altitude in 1-hr. 49-min. flight from Edwards AFB. Pilots were North American Aviation, Inc.'s chief test pilot Alvin S. White and Col. Joseph Cotton (USAF). (Flight log; AFFTC EO )
U.K.'s Associated Electrical Industries, Ltd., General Electric Co., Ltd., and Plessey Co., Ltd., had joined forces to sell ground terminals at $4 million each to countries that wanted to pick up and relay telephone, telegraph, and television signals from communications satellites, reported Clyde H. Farnsworth in the New York Times. The British companies believed there would be market for about 30 terminals in the next two to three years and about 70 to 80 in the next ten years, and said that at least seven nations were already interested in purchasing terminals. (Farnsworth, NYT, 4/1/66, 57)
National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) and ComSatCorp. presented progress reports on their separate feasibility studies on domestic communications satellite system at ComSatCorp-sponsored meeting in Washington, D.C. Proposed systems, which could provide 24-hr. full-color television service and interconnected facilities for radio networks, would each cost about $100 million and would consist of four to six three-channel synchronous satellites, back-up satellites and boosters, ground-to-satellite stations, control stations, and ground receiver terminals. NBC's system would serve only television and radio networks; ComSatCorp's "common carrier" system could be expanded to accommodate all types of communications. Meeting, attended by television network, communications, industrial, manufacturing, and government officials, was first in a series to be held before final plans were submitted to FCC for approval. (NBC Release; ComSatCorp; Wash. Post, 4/13/66, D6; Wash. Eve. Star, 4/13/66, D12)
Ability to induce genetically a hibernation state in man that would lessen the body's needs by cooling could be beneficial for long space voyages, suggested Dr. R. R. Chaffee, Univ. of Missouri Space Science Research Center, in a speech before Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting in Atlantic City. Dr. Chaffee told of genetic experiments in which the ability to hibernate gradually was increased over several generations in some families of Syrian hamsters and reduced in others, indicating that only a few hereditary genes might be involved in the hibernation process. (Carey, Wash. Post, 4/13/66, A3)
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